Breaking News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/4/2021
  

  The Deficit Hawks That Make Moderate Democrats Cower

  The Commitee For a Responsible Federal Budget has lobbied both parties toward austerity policies for decades. Writer Alex Yablon examines the group's origins and impact beginning in the Clinton era. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/1/2021
  

  The Muddled History of Anti-Asian Violence

  The COVID pandemic has led to increased hostility and violence targeting Asian Americans. Younger activists, who want to define these attacks as crimes of bias, struggle to convince the wider society that these individual incidents are part of a historical pattern of racism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/1/2021
  

  Massive Investment in Social Studies and Civics Education Proposed to Address Eroding Trust in Democratic Institutions

  The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative will release a 36-page report and an accompanying 39-page road map Tuesday, laying out extensive guidance for improving and reimagining the teaching of social studies, history and civics and then implementing that over the next decade.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/1/2021
  

  Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces

  A Manhattan nurse learned that a painting in her apartment was the missing Panel 28, "Immigrants admitted from all countries: 1820 to 1840—115,773,” in Jacob Lawrence's "Struggle: From the History of the American People." 

• 
• SOURCE: Dayton.com
  3/1/2021
  

  Former Procter and Gamble CEO: America and the World Need History Majors

  by John Pepper

  "Paraphrasing former Yale President and MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti, I love history because I have come to see that without a knowledge of the past — its realities and causative relationships –— we cannot hope to construct an action agenda able to lead us to a better future."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/24/2021
  

  Cherokee Nation Addresses Bias Against Descendants of Enslaved People

  The decision by tribal authorities was a significant step toward resolving the issues created by prior decisions to exclude the descendants of Black people enslaved by members of the Cherokee nation from full citizenship privileges. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/2/2021
  

  Democrats Can't Kill the Filibuster. But they Can Gut It

  by Norman Ornstein

  The veteran congressional analyst argues that there are reforms short of blowing up the filibuster that could win the support of two recalcitrant Democrats and allow the party to pass legislation, largely by returning to older Senate rules governing the filibuster.

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  3/2/2021
  

  Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton

  by Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher

  New documents shed further light on the involvement of the FBI in the 1969 assassination of Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, who is the subject of the new film "Judas and the Black Messiah." 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  3/2/2021
  

  Reading A Letter That's Been Sealed For More Than 300 Years — Without Opening It

  A new digital technique can allow researchers to virtually read letters, folded by the senders to thwart tampering, without having to open or damage the artifacts. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/26/2021
  

  Shelia Washington Dies at 61; Helped Exonerate Scottsboro Boys

  Shelia Washington read the story of the Scottsboro Boys as a teen, dedicated her life to preserving knowledge of their case, and finally spearheaded an effort that led the state of Alabama to exonerate the wrongly convicted men. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/28/2021
  

  The Lie at the Heart of the Western

  New novels disrupt the stories of white heroism at the heart of the Western genre and grapple with the multiethnic, violent, and exploitative history of the continent. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/26/2021
  

  The Campaign to Cancel Wokeness

  Columnist Michelle Goldberg examines the roots of the academic Critical Race Theory movement, and concludes that while its practitioners are sometimes willing to prioritize justice over free speech, the right today simply wants to suppress ideas it fears.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  2/28/2021
  

  The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families

  by Michael Waters

  Before the legal recognition of same-sex adoptive parents, social workers around the country made decisions to place gay and lesbian teens with gay and lesbian foster parents as a humane and protective act. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  

  Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy G.O.P. as Traditional Conservatism Fades

  by Jonathan Martin

  This year's CPAC meeting shows a remarkable Trumpian orthodoxy among Republican officials that stands out in contrast to the intense public debates that have followed previous electoral defeats. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/2/2021
  

  (Opinion) If Curtailing Racist Imagery in Dr. Seuss is ‘Cancel Culture,’ What, Exactly, is Your Culture?

  by Philip Bump

  Washington Post columnist suggests that accusations of "cancel culture" following the Dr. Seuss estate's decision to remove six books from print tell more about the accusers than about the subject.

• 
• SOURCE: KCUR
  3/2/2021
  

  What The History Of 'Noose Road' Tells Us About Kansas, Race And The Lynchings Of Black Men

  Despite its Great Plains location and history of abolitionism, Kansas has been the site of lynching, sundown towns and violent exclusion of Black residents. Historians Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders and Jim Leiker discuss. 

• 
• SOURCE: BBC
  3/2/2021
  

  Bunny Wailer: Reggae Legend who Played with Bob Marley Dies, Aged 73

  The star, whose real name was Neville O'Riley Livingston, had been the last surviving member of The Wailers. 

• 
• SOURCE: Scientific American
  3/1/2021
  

  Killings by Police Declined after Black Lives Matter Protests

  The study relies on a quantitative method that evaluates the timing of events to approximate a control-group experiment. The mechanism remains unclear, but results suggest BLM protests lead to fewer police killings. 

• 
• SOURCE: WHYY
  2/23/2021
  

  Camden’s ‘Hoodbrarian’ Brings Love of Books to Community

  One citizen's efforts are carrying on the community functions of a public library system decimated by budget cuts in Camden, New Jersey. 

• 
• SOURCE: WABE
  3/1/2021
  

  Ga. Lawmaker Authors Bills To Abolish Confederate Monuments In Peach State

  Georgia state representative Shelly Hutchinson argues that while Confederate monuments stand,"there’s no healing that takes place there, and that means you are OK with where we are at as a country.”